wishes in wax

one of LilyB's/many-voice's gabillion GW2 characters

[many-voices]

 💭 [for Cora]

Liselle snuffed out the candles surrounding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Ascalon Settlement.  With each she thought a name, one of the hundred listed dead.  With the last flame gone and the wax scraped off stone, she gathered up her supplies for her return to the Reach. 

She paused at the top of the hill to look down over the Settlement.  Graceful stone buildings topped with red slate bordered ash pits and blackened remnants, and in the middle of it all stood the Lady Secretary with a line of petitioners waiting for her attention.  How she managed it, how she saw to all of them with barely a moment to herself…it was as inspiring as it was melancholy.

Liselle decided then and there to send Lady Minuit a candle.  Something attuned to Dwayna and rich with scents of the sea, something to bolster her when she finally had time to look after her own care.  Dwayna grant you strength, Liselle thought in silent prayer before heading down the hill toward the waypoint and home.

[liselle-violante]

A Delivery of Light

Bootheels sound in a swift, efficient rhythm down the corridors of the Reach’s Priory offices.  The steps pause at the dim entrance to one of the office’s research areas.  “Leaving a package for you, mister,” comes a sprightly call alongside the sound of a parcel being set down on the stone floor.  Footsteps then hurry back the way they came.

Should Leon Sefka choose to open the package, he’d find half a dozen candles and a note.  The candles are tinted grey and green, and from them seeps a heady, verdant scent.  

The note reads:

Dear Leon,

I’m sorry I couldn’t bring candles this week.  With the Settlement fire, I’ve been there keeping the cemetery and the shrine lit.  So many people suffered.  So many still suffer, given what they’ve lost or who they’ve had to say goodbye to.  I hope my small efforts do something, help someone.  I don’t have words to offer anyone, only light.

The candles are consecrated to Grenth, and while I am no bearer of His powers, I believe they might give you strength and purpose, as before.  I hope you haven’t found any more beasts to slay, and -- thank you?  It’s an odd thing to say,  given the circumstances, but thank you.  You let me help you, and that means more to me than you know.

Good luck with your work.  I hope Grenth favors your efforts. Liselle (( @rookmenagerie ))

[liselle-violante]

Alscara Manor

((Image is actually of Cragside.))

Faculty, students, and benefactors simply call it, “Alscara.”  The academy is located in a sprawling mansion in far northeast Gendarran, not too far from Vigil Keep.  With jagged hills at its back and a broad stream separating the property from the rest of Gendarran, the school is defensible, discreet, and content to remain uninvolved with Krytan affairs as a whole.  It appears to many as simply the remote mansion of a reclusive noble, and the school’s supporters do their best to help reinforce that assumption.  Lord Otavio Alscara, after all, still lives in the house that bears his family’s name.

Entrance is by invitation only, and wealth - or lack of it - is no obstacle to attendance: Alscara’s benefactors generously provide for human students of all backgrounds, should they meet the school’s simple and narrow criteria. Should a young person be inflicted with a wayward excess of magic, uncontrollable and disruptive, Alscara will take them in.  They will not emerge unchanged.  

The faculty includes stern and persuasive people of every known magical persuasion, though one would find few of them listed in Priory rosters or the rolls of other institutions of learning.  Both faculty and students live on site, the better to concentrate on the mission of turning young would-be weapons into decent Krytan citizens.

[liselle-violante]

∯

“No one’s ever trusted me to help vanquish something before.  And I was so terrified - I thought I’d burn you or drown you, or cover you with earth until your breath was gone.  I was so scared.  But we did it anyway, an evil, gone.  Thank you, thank you.  Praise the Gods!”

[liselle-violante]

∯

“I wish…I could forgive you.  For putting me in that place.  You were scared too, I’d burned down the house.  That’s what I tell myself, that you were afraid.  You said you prayed, and prayer matters.  So maybe it was the will of the Gods, that you put me in that place.  But I can’t forgive you.  I pray for it.  I’ll always pray for it.  But I can’t.”

[doomedbrothers]

[liselle-violante]

Lighting Candles for the Five

It wasn’t the place to have worn pink. 

An incongruously sunny sky beamed down over the devastation.  Liselle moved from statue to statue, first drawing up small pedestals from the earth and then setting the candles carefully into place.  A flick of her finger lit each wick until all the statues save Balthazar’s were properly encircled with light. 

She fell to her knees in the brilliantly lit semicircle.  From behind she could hear the shouts of soldiers and workers beginning to set the ravaged settlement to rights.  Stone rumbled, dogs barked. She’d slicked the candles with fine oils from the south, and surrounded by the thick, spiced scents, she could almost forget the reek of smoke and death.

Water seeped from her hands as she bent her head in prayer.  Where people hurt, her magical affinities responded.  It soaked her ash-streaked stockings and turned the ground beneath her knees into a muddy mess, but as the moments passed, she sank into prayer.

Dwayna, heal these people, give them hope.  Melandru, grow again in trees and flowers and turn scorched earth into life.  Grenth, welcome the dead into the Mists and treat them fairly and kindly.  Lyssa, turn this hideousness to beauty, let the Settlement rise again.  Kormir, judge those who did this, and protect this place from their wrong-doing.

She didn’t realize she prayed aloud until she noticed a soot-covered laborer kneeling beside her.  “Grenth take them in,” he said gruffly before standing and returning to his work.  Others began to drift over, the faithful and the curious, and she knelt in supplication, ready to light the candles again should any dare to go dark.

( @lipstickmirage )

[liselle-violante]

An Offer of Light

The news was on every crier’s lips and the only topic of discussion at Reach cafes and markets.  Ascalon Settlement, devastated.  A hundred dead.  Liselle heard of the tragedy from one of her clients at market and then had the busiest day of sales since opening the stall earlier in the year.  Funerary candles, candles to set at Dwayna’s statues, at Kormir’s, at Grenth’s.

When the missive from the Settlement asking for aid made the rounds, Liselle sold her last few Grenth-devoted candles and closed for business despite the customers remaining.  Her heels clicked as she hurried back down the hill to her Commons flat.

She wrote in haste, spiky handwriting flowing across the page:

Dear Lady Secretary Minuit,

I’m just a commoner in the Reach, a candle-maker who lights shrines and graves and wherever else I’m contracted to go.  I know it’s too early, that you’re still putting out fires and helping those who live, but the Gods hear us in our prayers, and I’ve lit the Settlement statues and graveyard both before.  Please, may I come and show devotion and give your grieving somewhere bright and powerful to pray?  I won’t be in your way, I promise.  And whatever I can give to light the darkened city, I will.

Best, Liselle Violante Western Commons, Divinity’s Reach

( @lipstickmirage )

[lipstickmirage]

The woman paused, her soot streaked form leaning against a charred brick wall. Her fingers held the letter carefully, her breath catching. Her footsteps quickened back to her tent where she took up her pen.

[Dear Ms.Violante,

Please. May your prayers and may the light from your waxen pillars illuminate the hearts and souls of us all. May the words act as a balm on our troubled hearts.

I welcome you with open arms, and I pray that you may help us bring light and hope again to the shadows that linger here.

I thank you.

Lady Secretary Coralie Minuit]

@wryanddangerous @liselle-violante

[neckkiss]

Rupi Kaur 

(via weheartit)

[liselle-violante]

An Offer of Light

The news was on every crier’s lips and the only topic of discussion at Reach cafes and markets.  Ascalon Settlement, devastated.  A hundred dead.  Liselle heard of the tragedy from one of her clients at market and then had the busiest day of sales since opening the stall earlier in the year.  Funerary candles, candles to set at Dwayna’s statues, at Kormir’s, at Grenth’s.

When the missive from the Settlement asking for aid made the rounds, Liselle sold her last few Grenth-devoted candles and closed for business despite the customers remaining.  Her heels clicked as she hurried back down the hill to her Commons flat.

She wrote in haste, spiky handwriting flowing across the page:

Dear Lady Secretary Minuit,

I’m just a commoner in the Reach, a candle-maker who lights shrines and graves and wherever else I’m contracted to go.  I know it’s too early, that you’re still putting out fires and helping those who live, but the Gods hear us in our prayers, and I’ve lit the Settlement statues and graveyard both before.  Please, may I come and show devotion and give your grieving somewhere bright and powerful to pray?  I won’t be in your way, I promise.  And whatever I can give to light the darkened city, I will.

Best, Liselle Violante Western Commons, Divinity’s Reach

( @lipstickmirage )

[iheartalonatal]

[halloweendust]

[vintage-sweden]

Candle making, 1946, Sweden.

[moonlightacademy]

Reading A Candle

Watch your candles closely and learn to read them to help you with your practice.

The Flame

A strong flame: It means that your energies are raised. There is a lot of power behind your spell and little to no resistance. Indicates that all your power and energy is focused on your manifestation. This is a good sign. If a candle shaped into a figure is used and has a strong flame it means that whoever it represents is either angry, winning, or using authority over another. When their are two figures the candle with the higher flame has authority over the other person.   

A weak flame: Indicates that the magick you cast is facing a heavy opposition and is a sign that you may need to recast your spell in order to overcome the opposing force. On a figure candle this may indicate that the representative may be loosing a battle or an argument. 

A jumping flame: This indicates strong emotions. There may also be some sort of resistance against you. Maybe close your circle and bring your mind back to focus before continuing. It may also mean an explosion of energy. When two figure candles are being used it often means that an energetic or a heated argument is taking place between them.  

A noisy candle: Indicates a conversation. It may may that a spirit is trying to send you a message or get in contact with you. The louder the noises get the more urgent communication must be. 

The flame catches something on fire: Someone one may be using malicious magick against you.  

A clean even burning candle: Means your spell and manifestations are likely to come true.

Fast Burn: The results of your spell will happen quickly.

Flickering Flame: If there is no breeze then it means a spirit is near by. If it is a devotional flame it means you were able to get in contact with your deity.

Cannot blow the flame out: A spirit may not be finished its conversation with you or you did not complete a spell. The spirit needs to complete its work, something may be may in the works that you do not want to interrupt. 

A flame goes out while burning: This means the spirits cannot help you and the answer you seek is already determined.  

The Smoke

Black smoke/soot: Your energy and magick is being blocked. Negative energy is being sent your way, whether as a curse or hex. You may soon be faced with tough challenges and a hard road ahead of you. 

Smoke wafts towards you: It means your call will likely be answered or your spell has been cast successfully. You will get results quickly.

Smoke wafts away from you: You must work harder in order for your calls to be answered.

Watch the direction the smoke wafts: East - Something powerful is assisting you, North - You are ready to begin your ritual and get results, South - The spell will be successful, West - A powerful interference from an outside force.

Smoking Candle: Negative energy is being burned away.

The Wax

When a candle leaves wax residue: Your spell may need to be repeated.

Look for symbols in the candle wax, like reading tea leaves.

Resources: askanthony.weebly.com, anamericanwitch.wordpress.com,   

May the Moon light you path!

☾ Moonlight Academy ☽ 

[liselle-violante]

Character Profile

Name:  Liselle Violante, born Liselle Fletcher

Nationality:  Krytan on her mother’s side, Ascalonian on her father’s.

Age:  23

Profession:  Candle-maker who has figured out through her elementalist powers how to infuse her wares with magical properties.  As pious as she is, most are dedicated to one of the Five, though she can also do basic principles like “protection” and “love” and “service.”  She has a contract with the Priory to light the scholarly spaces in Divinity’s Reach; she also sells in open-air markets wherever she can find one.

Family:  Daughter of Adela Violante and her first husband, mercenary Tom Fletcher (now deceased).  She was raised in Triskell Quay while her father served in his company (the Golden Falcons).  When her parents split, she went with her mother to Divinity’s Reach -- she only saw her father again a few times before his death in Orr.  Her mother sent her to a place to "help” her control her magic, but that’s another story.

Problem:  With the candles? Not at all.  With money?  Not at all -- a trust bequeathed to her by one of her father’s former romantic partners (Cat Duvall) sees her well cared for.  What she struggles with is her wild, often uncontrollable elemental magic and how much it continues to isolate her.

Flaws:  She’s afraid all the time, though she tries to push through it as best she can.  She trusts very few people and she doesn’t expect to live long, given the havoc her magic has wreaked in the past.  She doesn’t cling to life, she sort of floats along in prayers and with her candles, just preparing for when she injures herself all the way to the Mists. 

Strengths:  She’s kind, helpful, feminine, even sweet.  Her powers are massive, though that can certainly also go under ‘flaws.’  She’s no scholar, but she enjoys learning and history and fiction.  When plays come through the Reach, she watches them over and over, enthralled.

Quirks:  She can’t tell jokes to save her life.  She’s pious to a point that others might find obnoxious, and attributes all sorts of human errors to godly intervention.  Despite her money, she lives in a little flat in the Commons with no one else on any side.  Thanks to her father, she can wield a staff with some martial skill.  Some.

Contacts:  Market vendors like herself.  She’s met very few people since...well, where she was forced to spend most of her time after her mother gained custody.  Nolan Royce ( @nolan-royce ) recently saved her from a kidnapping, and she helped Leon Sefka ( @rookmenagerie ) take down a necromantic beast.

[blackandwh0te-deactivated201911]

[many-voices]

Dreamtime; dealer's choice.

Three candles, three flames.  The person kneeling on the other side of the candles is a stranger, but another blonde.  Not a mirror, but still a reflection, though more capable-looking, more sure, more there.

Statues of the Six are arrayed around them, all Six, with Balthazar still in place. Wax drips over them in melted shrouds; the room is stifling, windowless, with a ceiling that seemingly gets closer all the time.

“Ask your question of the Gods,” Liselle says.  “Don’t tell me, but ask.”  The woman must have asked it; all three flames begin to flicker.  The stranger’s expression never wavers when Liselle says, “There will be obstacles in your path.”  One flame spirals high.  “…an enemy.  Pray.”

The ceiling lowers.  “Pray,” Liselle says again.  The stranger says nothing.  The ceiling lowers.  The stranger reaches out to sweep the candles into her hands. The ceiling lowers, the statues of the Six melt like the rest of the wax, and the flames burn higher and higher until all the world is red.